Category: Today

July 31

30 BC – Near Alexandria, Egypt, Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian’s forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts anyway when more troops under Octavian land in Alexandria.

1492 – The Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada – the Alhambra Decree – takes effect, expelling from Spain those Jews who had not converted to Christianity.

1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.

1763 – The forces of Odawa Chief Pontiac defeats British troops at the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac’s War.

1777 – The Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette “be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of Major-General of the United States.” 

1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

1932 – The Nazi Party wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.

1938 – Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius the Great in Persepolis.

1941 – Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question.”

1948 –  New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated at Idlewild Field in New York,

1964 – The Ranger 7 probe sends back the first close up photographs of the moon before it finally crashes into the surface, as planned.

1970 – The last officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy is issued.

1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin take the first ride in a lunar rover.

1973 – Delta Air Lines flight DL 723,  a Douglas DC-9, crashes while landing in fog at Logan International Airport, Boston,killing 87 passengers and crew of the 89 on board, with the last 2 passengers dying a short while later.

1991 – The United States and Soviet Union both sign the START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

1997 – FedEx Express Cargo Flight 14, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11F,  crashes on landing at Newark International Airport, however only injuring the 5 passengers and crew aboard.

2008 – East Coast Jets Flight 81, a Hawker 800, crashes near Owatonna Degner Regional Airport in Owatonna, Minnesota, killing all 8 passengers and crew on board.

2012 – Competing since 2004, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps breaks the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the most medals won at the Olympics. He will continue on to 2016, surpassing his previous record by upping his total to 28 with 23 being gold medals.

July 30

762 – Baghdad is founded on the ruins of the city of Babylon by the Abbasid Caliphate.

1502 – Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage.

1619 – In Jamestown, Virginia, the first Colonial European representative assembly in the Americas, the Virginia General Assembly, convenes for the first time.

1676 – Nathaniel Bacon issues the “Declaration of the People of Virginia”, beginning Bacon’s Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.

1718 – William Penn, the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, dies at his home in Ruscombe, England.

1729 – Baltimore, Maryland is founded

1863 – Representatives of the United States and tribal leaders, including Shoshone Chief Pocatello, sign the Treaty of Box Elder, compensating the tribe for their land claim at a rate of about 50¢ per acre.

1864 – Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.

1865 – The steamboat Brother Jonathan sinks off the coast of Crescent City, California, with the loss of 225 passengers.

1871 – While docked at the South Ferry slip on Manhattan island, the steam boiler of the Staten Island Ferry Westfield explodes, killing 126 people aboard, and on land and injuring hundreds more.

1881 – Marine General Smedley Butler, the last servicemember to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor is born in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

1945 – On the way to the Philippines after delivering the components for the Little Boy nuclear bomb, the USS Indianapolis is torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-58, killing 883 crewmen. Most die during the following four days afloat in the ocean, until an aircraft notices the survivors.

1956 – A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto.

1965 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

1971 – The Apollo 15 Lunar Module Falcon, piloted by David Scott and James Irwin, lands on the Moon near Hadley Rille with the first Lunar Rover aboard,  for a 3 day visit.

1974 – President Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court.

1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, never to be seen again.

2003 – In Mexico, the last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.

2020 – NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral with the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter aboard.

2022 – Nichelle Nichols, Uhura of Star Trek fame, dies of heart failure in Silver City, New Mexico, age 89.

July 29

587 BC – The Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar the Great, sacks Jerusalem and destroys the First Temple.

904 –After a short siege, moslem saracen raiders under Leo of Tripoli sack Thessaloniki, the Byzantine Empire’s second largest city, and plunder it for a week.

1148 – The Siege of Damascus ends in a decisive crusader defeat and leads to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.

1567 – The 4 year old James VI is crowned King of Scotland at Stirling.

1775 –  General George Washington appoints William Tudor as Judge Advocate of the Continental Army which is considered the founding of the U.S. Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps

1858 – On board the USS Powhatan in Tokyo Bay, emissaries of the U.S. and Japan sign the Harris Treaty, regulating trade and legal rights of U.S. citizens in Japan.

1871 – The Connecticut Valley Railroad opens between Old Saybrook, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut in the United States.

1899 – The First Hague Convention, which a part of is the ban on the use of expanding and soft point bullets, is signed.

1907 – Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England which is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.

1914 – Professor Irwin Corey is born in Brooklyn.

1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the NAtionalsoZIalistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party)

1957 – The Tonight Show – Tonight Starring Jack Paar premieres on NBC with the host beginning the modern day talk show.

1958 – President Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

1959 – The first congressional elections are held in Hawaii as a state of the Union.

1965 – The first 4,000 troops of the  101st Airborne Division arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay, beginning the increase of forces ordered the day before by President Johnson.

1967 – Off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134 crewmembers

1967 – During the fourth day of celebrating its 400th anniversary, the city of Caracas, Venezuela is shaken by an earthquake, leaving 500 people dead.

1976 – In New York City, David Berkowitz (a.k.a. the “Son of Sam”) kills 1 person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of shootings.

2005 – Astronomers at the Palomar Observatory, California announce their discovery of 2 dwarf planets in the solar system officially named Eris and Makemake

2021 – The International Space Station temporarily spins out of control, moving  45 degrees out of attitude, following an engine malfunction of Russian module Nauka.

July 28

1794 – The French Revolution backfires on two of the main revolutionary leaders themselves, as Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are executed by guillotine in Paris, France.

1854 – The USS Constellation, the last all sail warship built by the U.S. Navy, is commissioned into service.

1864 – At the Battle of Ezra Church, Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.

1868 – The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, establishing citizenship for all people ‘born or naturalized’ in the U.S., guaranteeing due process and equal protection of law and restricting states from abridging citizens rights,  is certified as being ratified.

1896 – The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated.

1914 – In the culmination of the July Crisis after the assassination of Arch Duke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, which is considered the start of World War I.

1932 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the Army to forcibly evict the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C.

1935 – First flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.

1938 – Pan American Airlines Hawaii Clipper disappears between Guam and Manila. The first loss of an airliner in trans-Pacific China Clipper service.

1945 – A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing the 3 crew aboard, 11 people in the building and injuring 26.

1965 – President Johnson orders an increase of the number of troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.

1984 – The summer Games of the XXIII Olympiad open in Los Angeles.

2002 – 9 coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, are rescued after 77 hours underground.

July 27

1189 – En route to the Holy Land during the Third Crusade, Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa I, leading his army, arrives at Niš, the capital of Serbian King Stefan Nemanja for resupply.

1299 – Historians date the day as the founding of the Ottoman state when  Osman I invades the territory of Nicomedia in modern northwest Turkey, for the first time.

1663 – The English Parliament passes the second Navigation Act requiring that all goods bound for the American colonies have to be sent in English ships from English ports.

1775 – The Second Continental Congress passes legislation establishing “an hospital for an army consisting of 20,000 men.”, founding the U.S. Army Medical Department.

1778 – During the Revolutionary War, the British and American ally French fleets fight to a standoff west of the isle of Ushant, at the mouth of the English Channel.

1789 – President Washington signs the legislation establishing The  Department of Foreign Affairs, later to be renamed The Department of State.

1816 – During the Seminole Wars, US Navy Gunboat No. 154 ends the siege of Negro Fort when its cannon fire explodes the fort’s powder magazine

1866 – The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable is successfully completed, laid from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.

1880 – During the Second Anglo-Afghan War, Afghan forces led by Mohammad Ayub Khan defeat the British Army in battle near Maiwand, Afghanistan.

1890 – Vincent van Gogh shoots himself and dies 2 days later.

1919 – The Chicago Race Riot erupts after a racial incident occurred on a South Side beach, leading to 38 fatalities and 537 injuries over 5 days.

1921 – At the University of Toronto, biochemist Frederick Banting proves that the hormone insulin regulates blood sugar.

1929 – The Geneva Convention of 1929, dealing with treatment of prisoners of war, is signed by 53 nations.

1940 – The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.

1949 – The de Havilland Comet, the first jet-powered airliner, flies for the first time.

1953 – A cessation of hostilities is achieved in the Korean War when the United States, China, and North Korea sign an armistice agreement.

1964 – 5,000 American military advisers are sent to South Vietnam bringing the total number of United States forces there to 21,000.

1974 – The House Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon.

1995 – The Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..

1996 – In Atlanta, a pipe bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics.

2002 –  A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes during an air show at Lviv, Ukraine killing 77 people and injuring more than 500 others, to date the deadliest air show disaster in history.

2005 – After an incident during STS-114, launching Shuttle Discovery on the first flight since the Shuttle Columbia disaster,  NASA grounds the Space Shuttle fleet, pending an investigation of the continuing problem with the shedding of foam insulation from the external fuel tank.

July 26

920 – During the Reconquista, the armies of the alliance of Navarre and Léon lose in battle against the moslem army of the Emir of Córdoba at Valdejunquera.

1139 – During the Reconquista, the day after defeating the moslem army of Ali ibn Yusuf, Prince Afonso Henriques is proclaimed Afonso o Conquistador, King of Portugal.

1529 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro is appointed governor of Peru.

1758 – During the French and Indian War, British forces are victorious in their siege of the French Fortress of Louisbourg on Nova Scotia and complete taking control of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

1579 – English explorer Francis Drake, on his voyage of circumnavigation, discovers a major bay on the coast of California -modern day San Francisco Bay.

1775 – Benjamin Franklin takes office as Postmaster General as the United States Post Office is established by the Second Continental Congress.

1788 – New York ratifies the U.S. Constitution.

1861 – General George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.

1863 – At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry under the command of General John Hunt Morgan are captured by Union forces.

1908 – Attorney General Charles Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner, later to be renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1941 – In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, the United States, Britain and the Netherlands freeze all Japanese assets and cut off oil shipments.

1945 – The Potsdam Declaration defining the terms of surrender required of Imperial Japan – basically unconditional – is signed in Germany by the leaders of the U.S., the UK and China. The USS Indianapolis arrives at Tinian island with the components for the Little Boy nuclear bomb.

1947 – President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council.

1948 – President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, desegregating the military of the United States.

1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, starting the Cuban Revolution.

1963 – NASA’s communications satellite, Syncom 2 is launched from Cape Canaveral to become the world’s first geosynchronous satellite.

1971 – Apollo 15 is launched as the first Apollo “J-Mission”, with the first Lunar Roving Vehicle stowed aboard the LM Falcon. 

1990 – The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into law by President Bush.

2005 – Shuttle Discovery is launched on mission STS-114 as the first flight after the Columbia Disaster in 2003.

2016 – Hillary Clinton becomes the first female nominee for President  by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Solar Impulse 2, piloted alternately by André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard,  becomes the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth.

July 25

306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.

315 – The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine’s victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.

1139 – During the Portuguese part of the Reconquista, Almoravid moslems led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by the forces of Prince Afonso Henriques, at Ourique, in Alentejo, Portugal

1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

1278 – During the Reconquista, oduring the siege of Algeciras near the Strait of Gibraltar, the fleet of the moslem Maranid Emirate of Granada, commanded by Abu Yaqub Yusuf an-Nasr wins a naval battle over the fleet of the Kingdom of Castile, commanded by the Admiral of Castile, Pedro Martínez de Fe.

1536 – Sebastián de Belalcázar, on his search for El Dorado, founds the city of Santiago de Cali, in modern Columbia.

1567 – Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas,  the capital city of Venezuela.

1603 – King James VI of Scotland is crowned King James 1 of England

1609 – The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore at Bermuda during a storm to prevent its sinking; the survivors going on to found a new colony there instead.

1693 – Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.

If anyone was wondering about all the Santiagos, July 25th is the feast day of the Apostle Saint James; ‘Santiago’ in spanish.

1722 – The ‘Dummer’s War’ between colonists and Abenaki tribes begins along the Maine-Massachusetts border.

1759 – During the French and Indian War, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon nearby Fort Rouillé to the north.

1783 – The Revolutionary War’s last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, is ended by a preliminary peace agreement.

1853 – Bandit Joaquin Murrieta, called the “Robin Hood of El Dorado”, is killed in Fresno County, by California Rangers

1861 – Congress passes the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

1866 – Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of The Army, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.

1868 – The Wyoming Territory is established.

1898 – In the Puerto Rican Campaign of the Spanish American War, the U.S Army lands and secures the port at Guánica.

1909 – Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier than air machine

1946 – Off Bikini Atoll during Operation Crossroads, the MK3 nuclear bomb “Helen” is detonated 90 feet underwater as the ‘Baker‘ – second – shot of U.S. nuclear tests.

1956 – 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, with the loss of 51 passengers.

1961 – President Kennedy states that any attack on Berlin will be considered an attack on NATO.

1969 – During the Vietnam War, President Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the U.S. now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense starting the “Vietnamization” of the war.

1978 – Louise Joy Brown is born at Oldham General Hospital, in Manchester, England;  the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation.

1993 – Members of the terrorist Azanian People’s Liberation Army attack the Saint James Church in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa killing 11 members of the congregation and wounding another 58 before a member, Charl van Wyk, returns fire, immediately stopping the terrorists and driving them off.

1994 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, formally ending the state of war between the two nations.

2000 – Air France Flight 4590, an Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde, crashes at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport on take off, killing all 109 passengers and crew aboard and 4 people on the ground.

2010 – WikiLeaks publishes classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.

July 24

1148 – An army under Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.

1534 – French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.

1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots is forced to abdicate and is replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI, later also James I of England

1701 – Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit.

1783 – Simón Bolívar is born in Caracas, Venezuela.

1847 – Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley.

1864 – Confederate troops led by General Jubal Early defeat Union troops led by General George Crook, in the 2nd Battle of Kernstown, Virginia

1866 – Tennessee becomes the first state to be readmitted to the Union under Reconstruction

1911 – Hiram Bingham III discovers Machu Picchu

1915 – The Michigan Steamship Company’s passenger ship SS Eastland capsizes while tied to a dock in the Chicago River with the loss of 844 passengers and crew of the 2572 aboard.

1922 – The British Mandate of Palestine is formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations

1929 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (really effective wasn’t it?)

1950 – Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket.

1959 – At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Nixon and Soviet Premier Khrushchev have a “Kitchen Debate”.

1969 – Apollo 11 and crew returns to Earth, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

1974 – The Supreme Court rules that President Nixon does not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and orders them surrendered to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1987 – The US flagged supertanker SS Bridgeton collides with mines off Farsi island in the Persian Gulf laid by Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, causing  moderate damage to the hull of the tanker.

1998 – Russell Eugene Weston Jr. opens fire in the United States Capitol killing two police officers.

July 23

1319 – A Knights Hospitaller fleet scores a victory over a moslem Aydinid emirate fleet off the Greek island of Chios

1632 – Three hundred colonists bound for New France (modern day eastern Canada) depart from Dieppe, France.

1829 – American inventor William Austin Burt patents the Typographer, an early form of  typewriter.

1892 – Tafari Makonnen, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia is born in Ejersa Goro, Ethiopia

1914 – Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia, demanding they allow Austrians investigate the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand…..or else.

1926 – Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.

1940 – The U.S. State Department issues a declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1952 – General Muhammad Naguib leads the Free Officers Movement, formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser in overthrowing King Farouk of Egypt.

1961 – The rebel Sandinista National Liberation Front is founded in Nicaragua.

1962 – The communications satellite Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.

1967 – In Detroit, a riot breaks out, beginning on 12th Street. 43 people are killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings are burned down.

1968 – In Cleveland, a violent shootout between the Black Nationalists of New Libya group and the police occurs, killing 3 people on each side and wounding over a dozen.

1972 – The Department of the Interior’s first satellite of the Landsat Earth-resources mission, is launched from Vandenburg Air Force Base.

1982 – Outside Santa Clarita, California, actor Vic Morrow and 2 children are killed when a helicopter crashes onto them while shooting a scene from Twilight Zone: The Movie.

1995 – Comet Hale–Bopp is discovered; it becomes visible to the naked eye on Earth nearly a year later.

1999 – Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-93, with Eileen Collins becoming the first female space shuttle commander.

2015 – NASA announces discovery of a giant exoplanet orbiting the star Kepler 452 in the constellation Cygnus, by the Kepler Space Telescope

July 22

838 –  An army of the Byzantine emperor Theophilos suffers a heavy defeat by an army of the Abbasid caliphate at Anzen in modern day northeastern Turkey

1099 – Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulcher of The Kingdom of Jerusalem during the First Crusade

1456 – John Hunyadi, Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, defeats Mehmet II of the Ottoman Empire during the moslem siege of Belgrade.

1587 – A second group of English settlers arrives on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to reestablish the deserted colony.

1686 – Albany, New York is formally chartered as a municipality by Governor Thomas Dongan.

1793 – The Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first recorded human to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America.

1796 – Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio “Cleveland” after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.

1864 – Outside Atlanta, Confederate General John Bell Hood leads an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman situated on Bald Hill.

1893 – After admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak, Katharine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful”.

1933 – Aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, completing the first solo flight around the world.

1934 – Gangster John Dillinger is shot and killed by FBI agents trying to escape after exiting the Biograph Theater in Chicago

1937 – The  Senate votes down President Roosevelt’s proposal to add more Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.

1942 – Compulsory civilian gasoline rationing begins in the U.S. during World War II. There was no shortage of gasoline,  in fact we had more gasoline production capacity than demand. The problem was a shortage of rubber for tires from the Dutch East Indies that was occupied by the Japanese.

1943 – Allied forces capture Palermo during the Allied invasion of Sicily.

1946 – The Israeli Irgun militia bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of British civil and military administration for Mandatory Palestine.

1973 – Pan Am Flight 816, a Boeing 707, enroute from New Zealand to San Francisco, crashes after takeoff from Faa’a International Airport in Papeete, French Polynesia, killing 68 of the 69 passengers and all 10 crew aboard

1974 – Students of Southwestern Bell Telephone’s 23 Desk Directory Assistance class 74-6 begin training.

1992 – Fearing extradition to the U.S., Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from his prison near Medellín.

1993 – Levees on the Mississippi river near Kaskaskia, Illinois rupture, forcing the entire town to evacuate by barge.

2003 – Troops of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, attack a compound in Mosul Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay

July 21

356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World in antiquity, is destroyed by arson.

1798 – Napoleon’s forces defeat an moslem Ottoman-Mamluk army near Cairo in the Battle of the Pyramids.

1861 –  At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the Civil War ends in a victory for the Confederate army.

1865 – In the town square of Springfield, Missouri, James ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok and Davis Tutt engage in what is regarded as the first western showdown gun fight with Hickok killing Tutt with a single shot.

1873 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the U.S.

1904 – Louis Rigolly, a Frenchman, becomes the first man to break the 100 mph barrier on land, driving purpose built, 13.5-liter engine powered Gobron-Brillié racing car in Ostend, Belgium to 103.561 mph.

1907 – The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company’s passenger steamer SS Columbia sinks after colliding with the Metropolitan Redwood Lumber Company’s steam schooner San Pedro off Shelter Cove, California, killing 88 passengers and crew aboard Columbia

1919 – The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company’s dirigible Wingfoot Air Express crashes into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, killing 3 passengers and crew aboard and 10 people in the building.

1925 – In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in his school class and fined $100.
Malcolm Campbell becomes the first man to exceed 150 mph on land, driving the Sunbeam 350HP at Pendine Sands in Wales, at a 2 way average speed of 150.33 mph

1944 – American troops land on Guam to retake it from the Japanese, starting a battle that will end on August 10.
In Berlin, 5 conspirators are executed for the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

1949 – The Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty, creating NATO.

1952 – The 7.3 Mw  Kern County earthquake strikes Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 12 and injuring hundreds.

1954 – The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

1959 – The U.S. government owned NS Savannah, the first nuclear powered cargo/passenger ship, is launched at Camden, New Jersey, as a showcase for President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative.

1961 – Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission astronaut Gus Grissom, piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space
Alaska Airlines Cargo Flight 779, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Shemya Air Force Base in Shemya, Alaska killing all 6 crew aboard.

1969 – At 02:56 UTC, at Tranquility Base, astronaut Neil Armstrong leaves the Lunar Lander Eagle and becomes the first person to walk on the Moon. At 17:54 UTC, the Eagle lifts off from the Moon to redock with the Command Module Columbia at 21:35 UTC

1970 – After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.

1979 – Mohawk Jay Silverheels becomes the first Native American to have a star commemorated in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1983 – The world’s lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −128.6 °F

2011 – NASA’s Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135.

July 20

356BC – Alexander the Great is born in Pella, Macedon.

70 – Titus’ Roman army storms the Fortress Antonia north of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

1189 – Richard the Lionheart of England is officially invested as Duke of Normandy.

1738 – Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.

1810 – Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia) declare independence from Spain.

1831 – The Seneca and Shawnee tribes agree to cede land in western Ohio for 60,000 acres west of the Mississippi River.

1864 – Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman at Peach Tree Hill near Atlanta

1903 – The Ford Motor Company ships its first automobile.

1923 –José ‘Pancho Villa’ Arámbula, is killed by a group of 7 assassins in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico

1940 – California opens its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.

1944 – Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1950 – In Federal Court held in Philadelphia , Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying, by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs to the Soviet Union.

1960 – The Polaris submarine launched ballistic missile – SLBM – is successfully launched from the USS George Washington

1969 – At 20:17:40 UTC,  Apollo 11’s Lunar Module, Eagle, piloted by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin makes the first manned landing on the Moon at Lunar coordinates 00°41′15″N 23°26′00″E, in the Sea of Tranquility, becoming Tranquility Base

1976 – The Viking 1 probe successfully lands on Mars.

1977 – Heavy rain in Cambria County, Pennsylvania overtops 6 dams which fail which causes a flash flood through the Conemaugh River Valley, killing 84 people in several towns and cities.

1993 – Vince Foster reportedly commits suicide in Fort Marcy Park, Fairfax County Virginia

1997 – The Navy celebrates the 200th birthday of the fully restored USS Constitution by setting sail on it for the first time in 116 years.

2012 – James Holmes, later sentenced to 12 consecutive life terms plus 3318 years without parole, opens fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others.

2013 – 17 government soldiers are killed in an attack by FARC revolutionaries in the Colombian department of Arauca.

2015 – The United States and Cuba resume full diplomatic relations after 5 decades.

2017 – O. J. Simpson is granted parole from prison after serving 9 years of a 33 year sentence after being convicted of armed robbery in Las Vegas.

2021 – American businessman Jeff Bezos flies aboard New Shepard NS-16 operated by his private spaceflight company Blue Origin.

July 19

64 – The Great Fire of Rome rages on for six days, destroying half of the city

711 – Umayyad moslem forces, under Tariq ibn Ziyad, defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic at Guadalete in southern Spain, noted as the first battle of the moslem conquest of the Iberian peninsula.

939 – During the Reconquista, King Ramiro II of León defeats a moslem army under Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III near Simancas in Spain

1701 – Under terms of the Nanfan Treaty, the Iroquois Confederacy cedes territory north of the Ohio River to England.

1814 – Samuel Colt is born in Hartford, Connecticut

1843 –The Great Western Steamship Company’s steamship SS Great Britain is launched, the first ocean going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, and at the time, the largest vessel afloat in the world.

1845 – The Great New York City Fire destroys 345 buildings and results in the death of 4 firefighters and 26 citizens

1870 – France declares war on Prussia.

1929 – Gaston Glock is born in Vienna, Austria

1934 – The rigid airship USS Macon ‘surprises’ the cruiser USS Houston near Clipperton Island, southwest of Mexico, en route to Hawaii, with a mail delivery for President Roosevelt, a demonstration by its Captain of the aircraft’s potential for tracking ships at sea.

1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 for the first time to an altitude of 347,800 feet exceeding an altitude of 100 km, qualifying as spaceflight.

1967 – Piedmont Airlines Flight 22, a Boeing 727, and a private corporate Cessna 310 collide over Hendersonville, North Carolina and crash, killing all 82 passengers and crew aboard both aircraft.

1969 – Senator Ted Kennedy crashes his car into a tidal pond at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.

1977 – The world’s first Global Positioning System is transmitted from an orbiting satellite.

1979 – Sandinista rebels overthrow the Somoza government of Nicaragua.

1981 – In a private meeting with President Reagan, French President Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing the Soviet Union had been stealing American technological research and development for decades.

1982 – David S. Dodge, president of the American University of Beirut, is kidnapped by Hezbollah

1989 – United Airlines Flight 232, A Douglas DC-10, suffers a engine failure in flight, damaging most of the craft’s fight controls, and crashes as the crew attempts an emergency landing at the Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa killing 112 of the 286 passengers and crew aboard.

2018 – The Knesset passes the controversial Nationality Bill, which defines the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

2019 – Dutch actor Rutger Hauer dies, age 75, at his home in the Netherlands.

July 18

452 – After an earlier defeat on the Catalaunian Plains in modern France, Attila The Hun lays siege to the metropolis of Aquileia near the border in far northeast Italy and eventually destroys it.

1195 – During the reconquista, the Castilian army of Alfonso VIII are defeated by Almohad moslem forces at Alarcos, and are forced to retreat to Toledo

1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz – Search me, O God, and know my heart (Psalms 139:23-24 ) in Leipzig

1841 –  Pedro II at age 15, is crowned Emperor of Brazil after reigning under a regency since age 5.

1863 – The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry attempts an unsuccessful assault on Confederate held Battery Wagner, south of Charleston harbor.

1914 –  Congress forms the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, U.S. Army

1925 – Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf

1942 – The Germans test fly the jet fighter Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe ‘Swallow’,  under power for the first time.

1966 – Gemini 10, crewed by John W. Young and Michael Collins is launched from Cape Kennedy Launch Complex LC-19 on a 3 day mission

1968 – Intel Corporation is founded in Mountain View, California

1976 – At the age of 14 (which is no longer allowed per an age limit 16 enacted in 1997) Nadia Comăneci becomes the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the Summer Olympics.

1984 – James Huberty opens fire at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others before being shot dead by police.

2002 – While performing aerial firefighting operations on the Big Elk Fire, a  Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer owned by Hawkins & Powers Aviation  crashes near Estes Park, Colorado, killing both crew members.

2013 – The Government of the City of Detroit files for municipal bankruptcy

July 17

180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium (near Kasserine, in modern day Tunisia) in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.

1203 – The Army of the Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople

1821 – The Kingdom of Spain cedes the territory of Florida to the U.S.

1850 – Vega – Alpha Lyrae – at 25 light years distance, becomes the first star, other than the Sun, to be photographed by William Bond and John Adams Whipple at the Harvard College Observatory.

1867 – The Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston, Massachusetts.

1881 – Mountain man, trapper, Army scout, and wilderness guide Jim Bridger dies, age 77, at his home near Kansas City.

1918 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered by Bolsheviks

1936 – An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the Spanish Civil War

1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the “wrong way” to Ireland and becomes known as “Wrong Way” Corrigan.

1944 – During World War II, at Port Chicago, California, the San Francisco Bay, the Liberty ship SS E. A. Bryana explodes while being loaded with ammunition, killing 320 people and injuring 390.

1945 – The main three leaders of the Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam.

1953 –  A Marine Corps Fairchild Packet transport aircraft crashes on takeoff from Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Florida, causing the largest number of United States Midshipman casualties in a single event, killing 38 of the 40 aboard and 5 of the 6 crew.

1955 – Disneyland is opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

1962 – The 18 TNT ton equivalent yield W54 “Small Boy” test shot Little Feller I  becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site.

1975 – An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.

1981 – A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200.

1996 – TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747-100, explodes in the air and crashes off the Atlantic Ocean coast of Long Island, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 passengers and crew aboard.

1998 – A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court, seated in The Hague, Netherlands, to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

2007 – TAM Airlines Flight 3054, an Airbus A320, crashes into a warehouse after landing too fast and missing the end of the São Paulo–Congonhas Airport runway, killing all 187 passengers and crew aboard, and 12 more on the ground.

2014 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, is shot down by Russian supported forces while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew aboard.

2018 – American astronomer Scott S. Sheppard announces that his team at the Carnegie Institution for Science, has discovered a dozen new moons of Jupiter.

2022 – Indiana resident Eli Dicken takes matters into his own hands and shoots down a mass shooter at the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenwood, Indiana.using a bog standard Glock 19 loaded with Blazer fmj ‘hardball’.

July 16

1054 – Three Roman legates break relations between Western and Eastern Christian Churches through the act of placing a Papal Bull of Excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia during divine liturgy. This is generally considered as the start of the East–West (Roman Catholic- Orthodox Catholic) Schism.

1212 –After Pope Innocent III calls European knights to a crusade, the forces of Kings Alfonso VIII of Castile, Sancho VII of Navarre, Peter II of Aragon and Afonso II of Portugal inflict a serious defeat on those of the Berber moslem leader Almohad near Santa Elena, Jaén, marking a significant turning point in the Reconquista

1536 – French navigator and explorer, Jacques Cartier returns home to the port of St. Malo after claiming Stadacona (Quebec), Hochelaga (Montreal) and the River of Canada (St. Lawrence River) region for France.

1661 – The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.

1769 – FR Junípero Serra founds California’s first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá.

1779 – The Continental Army seizes a fortified British Army position in a midnight bayonet attack at the Battle of Stony Point.
What Is The Spirit Of The Bayonet? To KILL!!
What Makes The Grass Grow? BLOOD!!

1790 – The Residence Act establishes the District of Columbia as the capital of the U.S.

1809 – The city of La Paz, Bolivia declares its independence from the Spanish Crown

1861 – Union troops begin a march into Virginia for what will become the First Battle of Bull Run.

1862 – David Farragut is promoted to Rear Admiral, becoming the first officer in the United States Navy to hold an admiral rank.

1886 – Edward Judson Sr.,  more well known by his pseudonym Ned Buntline, dies at his home in Stamford, New York

1931 – Emperor Haile Selassie signs the first constitution of Ethiopia.

1935 – The world’s first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

1941 – Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game

1945 – The U.S. Army’s G Division successfully detonates the ‘Gadget’, a implosion type plutonium nuclear device, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
The cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco, bound for Tinian Island, with parts for the gun type uranium nuclear weapon ‘Little Boy’.

1948 – The city of Nazareth capitulates to Israeli troops during the Arab–Israeli War.

1950 – During the battle of Taejon, 30 American POWs are murdered by the North Korean Army.

1956 – Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus closes its last “Big Tent” show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, due to changing economics. All subsequent circus shows will be held in arenas.

1969 – Apollo 11, commanded by astronaut Neil Armstrong, with crew Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins aboard is launched from launch complex LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center

1979 – Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein.

1994 – Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 is destroyed in a head on collision with Jupiter as predicted by the astronomers who discovered it.

1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, die when the aircraft, a Piper Saratoga PA-32R,  he was piloting crashes off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

2015 – Four U.S. Marines die in an attack by a moslem terrorist targeting military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

July 15

70 – After 3 days of siege the army of Roman general – and later emperor – Titus breaches the walls of Jerusalem.

1099 – Christian soldiers of the First Crusade take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after a final assault.

1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem.

1482 – Muhammad XII is crowned the 22nd and last moslem king of Granada.

1741 – Aleksei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska. He sends men ashore, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.

1789 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, is named by acclamation Colonel General of the new National Guard of Paris during the French revolution.

1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in, of all places, the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre François Bouchard

1806 – Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition of the west from Fort Bellefontaine, Missouri

1834 – The Spanish Inquisition, which no one ever expected, is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years of operation.

1862 – On the Mississippi river, the Confederate ironclad Arkansas, under the command of Captain Isaac N. Brown engages the Union flotilla of the Carondelet, Tyler, and Queen of the West, commanded by Admiral David Farragut. All ships sustain heavy damage but the Arkansas breaks through to Vicksburg

1870 – Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union under Reconstruction.

1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gives a name to Alzheimer’s disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.

1916 – In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products, later renamed Boeing.

1918 – The Second Battle of the Marne during World War I begins with a German attack.

1948 – General of The Armies, John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing, age 87, dies at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C.

1954 – The prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series, the Boeing 367-80 makes its maiden flight

1975 – The Apollo–Soyuz Test Project features the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft on the first joint Soviet/United States human crewed flight.

2002 – “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.

2006 – Twitter is launched.

2016 – Steven Fjestad, age 68 author of multiple editions of the Blue Book of Gun Values dies of a short illness at his home in Minnesota.

July 14

1430 – Joan of Arc, taken by the Burgundians in May, is handed over to Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais.

1769 – An dual land and sea expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá, Governor of the Californias, leaves its base in Baja California and sets out for Alta California, to find the Port of Monterey, now Monterey, California, as described by Sebastián Vizcaíno in 1602.

1789 – The citizens of Paris storm the Bastille, seizing control of the fortress and releasing the few political prisoners jailed there.

1798 – The Sedition Act becomes law in the United States making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government. Less than 3 years later, it expires.

1853 – The first major US world’s fair, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, opens in New York City.

1874 – The Chicago Fire of 1874 burns down 47 acres of the city, killing 20 people.

1881 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner at the Maxwell house. 140 years later, the Colt’s Frontier Model single action revolver used by Garrett sells for over $6 million at auction.

1900 – Armies of the Eight Nation Alliance capture Tientsin during the Boxer Rebellion.

1911 – Harry Atwood, an exhibition pilot for the Wright brothers, lands an airplane on the South Lawn of the White House.

1933 – In Germany, all political parties are outlawed except the Nazi Party.
The Nazi eugenics program begins with the proclamation of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring that calls for the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who suffers from alleged genetic disorders.

1943 – In Diamond, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of an African American.

1950 – North Korean troops initiate the Battle of Taejon.

1965 – The Mariner 4 probe takes the first close up photos of another planet during its flyby of Mars.

1983 – Nintendo released the computer game Mario Bros.

2015 – NASA’s New Horizons probe performs the first flyby of Pluto, completing the first survey of the Solar System.

2016 – A moslem terrorist vehicular attack in Nice, France kills 86 people and injures over 400 others.

July 13

587 BC – Babylon’s siege of Jerusalem ends following the destruction of Solomon’s Temple.

100 BC – Julius Caesar is born in Rome.

1787 – The Congress of the Confederation (under the Articles of Confederation), enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory (Northwest, that is of the Ohio River)

1863 – In New York City, opponents of conscription begin 3 days of rioting

1973 – Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of a secret White House Oval Office taping system to the Senate Watergate Committee

1977 – New York City experiences an electrical blackout lasting nearly 24 hours

2008 – The Battle of Wanat begins when Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas attack US Army and Afghan National Army troops in Afghanistan. SSG Ryan Pitts is later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle.

July 12

70 – The armies of Titus begin the attack on the walls of Jerusalem after a 6 month siege

1191 – Saladin’s garrison surrenders to Philip Augustus, ending the 2 year long siege of Acre during the 3rd Crusade

1804 – Alexander Hamilton dies the day after being shot by Aaron Burr in a duel.

1812 – The American Army of the Northwest briefly occupies the Upper Canadian settlement at what is now Windsor, Ontario during the War of 1812.

1862 – The Medal of Honor is authorized by Congress.

1967 – Riots, lasting over 4 days, begin in Newark, New Jersey over an incident of police brutality, resulting in 26 deaths

1973 – A fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States in St Louis.

2001 – Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-104, carrying the Quest Joint Airlock to the International Space Station.